It's Back.

Not Just In The Bathroom

In a story I reported on last fall, the German's have strange things in their bathrooms. Finally, mental_floss has picked up the story. Way to be on top of things.

Scrabble Babble

Breakfast Scrabble® this morning took place at Bluephie's, same as it did last year; this time Jobonga and Lucia were working the tiles. It was Leigha's first spin around the BreakScrab board; her nervousness subsided as soon as she realized Breakfast Scrabble exists in a plane free of expectations. Highlights included IDYLICH, which is German for idyllic, and BARFIX, which is a new anti-emetic. 

I ordered a baby quiche and they threw in 1 Name for free. Unfortunately it's the same one I've had since I was 2 weeks old.

Die Eiwaffe!

After 5 interminable weeks, Martin's Brown-Egged reign of terror has finally come to an end. He's been buying browns, and only browns, ever since I found this fake egg in an Iowa City Hobby Lobby. It's like he knew I was scheming up an egg swap and was just buying brown to spite me. Ach!

I figured him out though. All it took was a late night egg tossing/squeezing session to get rid of the last of his latest brown dozen. Which provided the perfect pretense to give him my eggs as replacements. And so operation Porcelain Egg begins...

[03.11.09 09:40] Update: Subject fried 2 eggs this morning. Appears unaware of swap. Observation continues.

Internet Wanderings, or: Hello Wikipedia; Goodbye Productivity.

I would like to begin by saying that it would be impolite to ask how many hours I spent creating the above flowchart.

Yesterday morning I woke up to the latest Strange Maps post that overlays the results of the 2007 Polish election with the imperial borders of the last century (seen above, center). This chart is a rough recreation of the ensuing hours of my life as I eagerly followed hyperlinks across the interwebs. I had an amazing time. Did you know the term 'Cisleithanian' or 'palimpsest'‽ How about that the Aral Sea has been in 2 pieces since 1987? The difference between the Kingdom of Prussia, The Duchy of Prussia, and Royal Prussia? When the British Monarchy lost its claim to Hanover, and why? These are just a few of the things I learned yesterday. And so many maps! [I loved seeing this old friend again.]

Fortuitously, that map of magnetic anomalies was this week's Morning News map quiz. In addition, I expect some of this raw data to be put to good use tonight at JD's game night.

Die Deutschen im Scheißeraum

Lately I've been living with a double German threat. That's twice our apartment's normal German level. And about 1.5 Germans more than I'm comfortable with. In addition to The German, our normal German contingent, Die Frau has been living in our basement bunker for the last couple of weeks too. Don't worry, they haven't gassed me yet. But neither does all the German accouterment in our bathroom set my mind at ease when I'm in the shower.

1. Kinder-Creme
You know the saying, "If tin whistles are made of tin, what are Kinder Cremes made of?" I'm basing my translation of 'kinder' on 'kindergarten' and my convenient little translation widget tells me that 'haut' means 'strikes'. Which begs the question, what exactly is this creme's purpose?




2. Sport-Gel
It's not that Sport-Gel is really that strange to see on an item in a bathroom, it's just strange to see it on a tube of toothpaste. I'm usually a shoo-in for new and interesting flavors of tooth products, but I don't think I would ever put a sport-gel in my mouth. Maybe if it was mango-mint flavored. Doesn't a mango-mint toothpaste sound good?




3. Bio-Rose
Bio-Rose. For some reason this absolutely unnerves me.




4. Extra Stark
Because of course the Germans are looking for a hair product to make them as stark as possible.



5. Pflegeöl
This is just funny. Say it, it's funny!